The Tivoli Service Automation Manager and WebSphere CloudBurst

When it comes to provisioning and managing WebSphere application environments in a cloud, nothing approaches WebSphere CloudBurst in terms of expertise and instant value. However, I bet there is more to your data center provisioning and management activities than just WebSphere application environments. You probably deploy and manage a wide variety of both IBM and non-IBM software. While some of these activities may be beyond the scope of the WebSphere expertise you get with WebSphere CloudBurst, they fall well within the reach of offerings from IBM Tivoli.

One of the Tivoli offerings that comes to mind in the service delivery automation arena is the Tivoli Service Automation Manager (TSAM). TSAM delivers capabilities to request, deploy, monitor, and manage a broad range of IT services within a cloud environment, in large part by using both virtualization and automation as delivery vehicles. Even better for WebSphere users, you can integrate TSAM and WebSphere CloudBurst to make use of TSAM capabilities in concert with the WebSphere deployment and management expertise delivered by WebSphere CloudBurst. When using these two together, you actually deploy and manage WebSphere CloudBurst patterns directly from the TSAM user interface.

The integration starts by providing information about a target WebSphere CloudBurst Appliance (essentially the location of the appliance and login credentials) within TSAM. After that, you run a discovery process included with TSAM to gather information about patterns on the target appliance. Once you discover the pattern information, you perform one last configuration step, and you are ready to go.

As far as actually initiating a pattern deployment, it works much like other project requests in TSAM. From the TSAM user interface, you create a new project based on a WebSphere CloudBurst pattern. The request goes into the queue, where an administrator can approve or reject the request. This gives a nice touch of workflow governance to WebSphere CloudBurst deployments. If approved, the project request proceeds and TSAM, by way of the WebSphere CloudBurst REST APIs, initiates the deployment of the selected pattern from the appliance. Of course, there is also a means to remove the virtual system directly from the TSAM user interface. You can cancel any WebSphere CloudBurst based project, and if approved by an administrator, TSAM again leverages the WebSphere CloudBurst REST API to trigger the deletion of the virtual system.

The integration of TSAM and WebSphere CloudBurst provides the best of both worlds really. You can use a single portal as a gateway for provisioning and managing a broad range of IT services within a cloud environment, while still leveraging the significant out-of-the-box know-how and value provided by WebSphere CloudBurst for WebSphere environments. Check out a demo of this integration here, and as always, let me know if you have any questions or comments.